The Girl Behind The Fan (Hidden Women) (4 page)

Unable to articulate what moved her, Augustine paused in her fretting and put her eye to the peephole again. In the room below, the general was still hard at his labours. Augustine could see Arlette’s be-ringed fingers twisting in the general’s thin grey hair. She could see Arlette’s tiny feet – still in their elegant satin shoes – flexing and pointing with increasing agitation. She could hear the sounds of Arlette’s excitement floating up from below.

Augustine put her hand to her own breast. Much as she hated to admit it, something about the scene was stirring to her. She felt a curious blossoming begin to take place inside her. Though the sensation was very strange, it wasn’t in the least bit unpleasant. The skin of her décolletage was suddenly covered in goose pimples. Her nipples puckered underneath her chemise. She felt her own breath quickening in time with Arlette’s.

‘Oh! Oh! Oooohhhh!’ Arlette cried out.

Augustine was transfixed.

‘Augustine! Come on! I’ve been ringing the bell for ten minutes!’

Elaine was back at the door, panting with the exertion of having run up all the stairs.

‘For goodness’ sake. Stop peeping. I need you in the kitchen. The poet has brought a friend with him. They want us to get them some dinner.’

Augustine quickly rolled the rug over the peephole and followed Elaine back downstairs.

Chapter 4

London, last year

So, what happened between Venice and Paris?

I left Venice in something of a hurry. Towards the end of February, Marco had arranged a Martedì Grasso ball. I had expected to meet him face to face for the first time that night. On the one hand, it seemed odd to choose to make our first meeting so public. On the other hand, I couldn’t help but think it was a rather romantic idea. I imagined it like the ball scene at the beginning of Baz Luhrmann’s
Romeo + Juliet
, where Leo DiCaprio and Claire Danes find a quiet moment away from the revelries to discover each other properly and press their palms together. Hand to hand. ‘Holy palmers’ kiss.’
Wasn’t that the line? Everyone else just faded away. That was what I wanted.

In the event, it wasn’t like that at all, though the ball was amazing. The usually gloomy Palazzo Donato looked like the glittering set of a Hollywood fairy tale. Bunting hung from the gallery around the courtyard garden. There were liveried servants and a string quartet and blazing torches illuminated every corner. It was as though a wand had been waved over the place, bringing it back to life in a way that hadn’t been seen for a decade, according to the rumours around the city. The guests added to the evening’s enchantment. In their finery and their masks, everyone was beautiful and elegant. They seemed to find more poise as they left behind their modern cares and were transported back in time.

To make the evening more special still, Marco had sent me the most beautiful Christian Dior dress to wear. It was the most wonderful gift. The dress was made of pewter silk with a tight bodice that fitted exactly to my curves, flowing into a full skirt that fell like a waterfall of feathers. But he had also sent me a
servetta muta
, a type of masquerade mask that has no straps but is instead held in place by a button, which the wearer must clench between her teeth. I wasn’t sure what Marco had meant by sending me a mask that would render me unable to talk. That’s partly why I decided to let my friend Bea wear the Dior instead, disguising herself as me, while I put on the vintage red dress she had found in the dusty corner of a tired old dress agency.

I’d wondered ever since if that was the decision that changed everything: my swapping costumes with Bea so that Marco might mix us up for just long enough for me to observe him as a stranger. You see, later that evening, Bea had an unexpected encounter in the library of the palazzo with a man she thought might indeed be Marco. When she introduced herself, however, he claimed he was just the gardener, dressed up for the party. Not believing what she heard, Bea made a playful grab for his hand, only to discover that it was horribly burned and disfigured. She failed to disguise her shock; I knew all this as I had watched everything from the door.

Bea fled the room in tears but I caught up with her in the corridor. By the time she’d finished telling me the story, I was convinced that the stranger had lied to her and that he was Marco Donato after all. I raced back to the library but the stranger was already gone. How? I had no idea. There was only one door into the room and I hadn’t seen him come out of it.

It was an odd moment, but it made perfect sense of the fact that Marco had been so mysterious throughout our email relationship and so difficult to pin down to a meeting. Had he been disfigured in some accident? Was that why he hid himself away? Only the master of the house could have known how to get out of the library without being seen.

It struck me some weeks later that perhaps I was meant to wear the
servetta muta
so that when Marco finally revealed himself to me, I would not give myself away with a sudden exclamation of horror as Bea had done. Having the button clenched between my teeth would have given me time to consider my reaction, potentially sparing both me and Marco the agony of a misplaced word. But in any case, after the ball Marco claimed he was not at the house at all that night. He sent me an email, with a photograph attached. The photo was a view of Hong Kong from a hotel window many storeys high. He’d been called away suddenly on business.

Because I was sure he was lying, for reasons that were perfectly understandable if my hunch was true, I couldn’t see what choice I had but to pretend that I believed him and, after that, leave him alone.

But of course he had been on my mind constantly. I couldn’t put Venice behind me. Not while I still had to work on Luciana. I thought about him every single day and, even when I wasn’t thinking about him consciously, he still drifted into my dreams.

I missed our daily banter. I missed feeling that there was someone who cared to hear about the minutiae of my life. I wanted to tell him he need not be embarrassed if he was no longer the gilded Adonis of the 1990s photographs I had pored over for so long. It needn’t stop us being friends. Or more.

I drafted emails to that effect but never got round to sending them. I told myself I was respecting his privacy, but perhaps the truth was that it
did
matter. Perhaps the difference between how Marco had looked in those pictures and the way he might look now was more important to me than I thought. And now four months had passed.

Then, out of the blue, I got an email from Nick Marsden, the fellow academic who had helped me find a place to stay and study in Venice. It was entitled, ‘I think this one’s for you.’ It was a job description. His email continued:

This came to our department today, from some big shot Hollywood film producer no less. Wants to know if we’ve got anyone who can help him develop a film about a Parisian courtesan: Augustine du Vert. Mean anything to you? I’d be all over it but I’ve just been promoted, don’t you know? Don’t have time to do anything much with all the paperwork that involves. Flying between Venice and Oxford every other weekend. I’m starting to feel like an air hostess. Bea has other commitments too. Not least of which is that security guard she had a thing for. Remember him? The one with the Neanderthal brow ridge and the intellect to match? She’s meeting his mother this weekend. She’s gone and bought a knee-length skirt for the occasion. Must be serious. Anyway, I digress.

So, I thought of you. Have a read of the attached spec and tell me what you think. If you fancy a shot at it, I’ll put you in touch with the producer at once. It would be great to hear from you anyway. How’s life in the Big Smoke?

Life in London was really not all that – I was dossing on a friend’s sofa. The weather was predictably awful – and reading Nick’s email made me wistful for Venice. Nick and Bea may have been just colleagues at first, but they had quickly become very good friends and I missed the happy evenings we spent together in a little bar by the Ponte dei Pugni, gossiping over glasses of Venetian spritz. Bea had been a good sounding board for relationship worries. Nick had been something else. Though I wouldn’t have admitted it at the time, his quiet attention had gone a long way to making me feel better about myself. I still wondered why I hadn’t taken it further.

Actually, I knew why I hadn’t taken it further. I was chasing an imaginary love that had appealed to my romantic heart far more strongly than the possibility of a nice sensible relationship with another historian.

However, the one thing that definitely wasn’t imaginary in my life right then was my ever-increasing overdraft. I needed a job. I had a teaching post lined up in Berlin but that didn’t start until September. I had been hoping to find some teaching work over the summer: tutoring bored teenagers at an A-level crammer college or something like that, but this was much more interesting. I decided I might as well find out more.

I wrote back to Nick at once, asking him to pass my details on to the producer. I told him it was indeed as though the job had been made for me. I’d just about finished my thesis, I had three months with nothing to do before Germany and I was wearing out my welcome on London’s finest couches. A trip to Paris was exactly what I needed. I did a quick Google search of Augustine’s name and quickly found some very juicy information. I had a feeling the project would be enormous fun. All I had to do was convince the producer that I was his girl.

Nick was true to his word and Greg Simon, the producer, called that very afternoon, as soon as Los Angeles was awake. Though we were unable to see each other face to face, even over the telephone we had an instant rapport. He assured me he didn’t need to verify the details of my CV. As far as he was concerned, the fact I had been working with famous professor Nick Marsden was recommendation enough. He felt sure I would make an excellent go of it. What kind of fee would I require for the job? And how quickly could I start?

‘You want me to name my fee?’ I said.

Greg confirmed that was exactly what he wanted.

Fortunately, I had already run through this scenario with Nick.

‘Think of a number, double it and add ten per cent,’ had been Nick’s advice. ‘They can only beat you down.’

I named my price. It was enough for me to stay in Paris in a modest hotel or a furnished apartment (I’d spent some time researching both). I could also pay off some loans and replenish my savings. I was astonished when Greg agreed without a quibble. It made me wonder if I should have asked for more. But the package he offered me was already beyond my wildest dreams before he added, ‘You know what? We made a movie in Paris last year and I think we still have a lease on an apartment someplace in the city. You want to stay in it? Save you looking for somewhere else? Means you could start right away.’

I couldn’t say ‘yes’ quickly enough.

Chapter 5

And so, in the course of a single phone call, I had a new job and my own Parisian apartment. The apartment was on the Place Boiledieu in the second arrondissement, Greg told me, right in front of the beautiful Opéra Comique. It would be ready for me as soon as I could get to the city. I made arrangements to leave London later that very week.

I travelled to Paris on the party train and arrived at the apartment building at around seven in the evening. The concierge met me with the keys and nodded me in the direction of the right staircase. There were four staircases altogether, set around a little courtyard. It was not unlike a college quad.

The apartment itself was exactly as I had always imagined my dream Parisian apartment. It was on the first floor – the equivalent of a Venetian
piano nobile
. A polished wooden staircase wound round a wrought-iron lift shaft. The metal doors to the apartment were huge and imposing, giving a suggestion of the luxury beyond where I found parquet floors and long shuttered windows, double doors and a fireplace with a huge baroque-style mirror above it. Two extravagant chandeliers hung from the ceiling of the salon but other than that and the mirror it was furnished relatively plainly. A large, white overstuffed sofa faced the fireplace. An iron bed that was already made up with crisp new linen dominated the bedroom. There was even a vase filled with camellias on the dressing table. I was impressed. Greg Simon must have called ahead and made sure they were waiting for me. They were a welcome touch; I felt just a little less alone at the thought of the unseen hands that had prepared the flat for my arrival. I wished whoever it was might have been there so I could thank them.

Having dumped my bags in the bedroom, I went back downstairs and caught the concierge just as he was leaving. I asked about local restaurants. He said he didn’t have a particular favourite, so I went to the closest and ate a very ordinary
croque monsieur
. I was feeling too tired to go further than a couple of streets away.

It would have been better if I’d had friends in the city but the only person I knew in Paris at that time was, by a most unfortunate coincidence, my ex-boyfriend Steven, who was working at the Sorbonne. I wasn’t going to be calling him. As a result, I was ready to go to bed by nine o’clock.

In the dark, I lay awake and listened to the building talking to itself: the hisses and creaks of old water-pipes and the squeak of ancient parquet as someone walked on the floor above. This was a grand apartment. I wondered who had been its first occupant. Who had slept in the bed? Who held parties in the beautiful grand salon beneath the twinkling chandeliers? What stories could this building tell? I would have to investigate the building’s history when I’d finished finding out about Augustine.